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Henry David Thoreau Quotes about Nature

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I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Adventure, Dead Poets Society
Walden ch. 2 (1854)

Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Long Walks, Weather
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.70, Heron Dance Press

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.

Henry David Thoreau
Motivational, Friendship, Nature
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Thoreau on Nature: Sage Words on Finding Harmony with the Natural World”, p.15, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

I love Nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him. None of his institutions control or pervade her. There a different kind of right prevails. In her midst I can be glad with an entire gladness. If this world were all man, I could not stretch myself, I should lose all hope. He is constraint, she is freedom to me. He makes me wish for another world. She makes me content with this.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Men, Wish
Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.104, David M Gross

What would human life be without forests, those natural cities?

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Cities, Climate
Henry David Thoreau (2011). “The Natural History Essays”, p.57, Gibbs Smith

Thank God, they cannot cut down the clouds!

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Cutting, Clouds
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2268, Delphi Classics

My profession is to always find God in nature.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Profession, Nature Beauty

He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Rivers, Despair
Henry David Thoreau, Carl Hovde (1980). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.334, Princeton University Press

The voice of nature is always encouraging.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Voice, Saddening
Henry David Thoreau, Ronald A. Bosco (2005). “Nature's Panorama: Thoreau on the Seasons”, p.111, Univ of Massachusetts Press

It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful, and gives birth to imagination

Henry David Thoreau
Marriage, Nature, Creativity
Henry David Thoreau (1999). “Material Faith: Thoreau on Science”, p.27, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Believe, Yield
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.59, Heron Dance Press

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.

Henry David Thoreau
Good Morning, Nature, Get Well Soon
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.107, BookBaby

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Science, Men
"Life Without Principle" (1863)

The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Healing, Quality
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.15, Graphic Arts Books

Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Morning, Dawn
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.57, Simon and Schuster

Nature spontaneously keeps us well. Do not resist her!

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Wells

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least - and it is commonly more than that - sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Being Alone, Thinking
Henry David Thoreau (2017). “HENRY DAVID THOREAU – The Man, The Philosopher & The Trailblazer (Illustrated): Biographies, Memoirs, Autobiographical Books & Personal Letters (Including Walden, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, A Yankee in Canada…)”, p.1127, e-artnow

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Travel, Hands
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.149, Courier Corporation

Each new year is a surprise to us. We find that we had virtually forgotten the note of each bird, and when we hear it again, it is remembered like a dream, reminding us of a previous state of existence. How happens it that the associations it awakens are always pleasing, never saddening, reminiscences of our sanest hours. The voice of nature is always encouraging.

Henry David Thoreau
Dream, New Year, Nature
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.194, Courier Corporation

Four things to think about. 1. Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. 2. Let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred. 3. Keep three chairs in your house. One for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. 4. To preserve your relationship to nature, make your life more moral, more pure, more innocent.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Nature, Thinking

There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Anxiety, Toil
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.88, Xist Publishing

All change is a miracle to contemplate, but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.

Henry David Thoreau
Change, Nature, Business
Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.250, Yale University Press

Whether we live by the seaside, or by the lakes and rivers, or on the prarie, it concerns us to attend to the nature of fishes, since they are not phenomena confined to certain localities only, but forms and phases of the life in nature universally dispersed. The countless shoals which annually coast the shores of Europe and America are not so interesting to the student of nature as the more fertile law itselffrom which it results that they may be found in water in so many places, in greater or lesser numbers.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Lakes, Europe And America
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.18, Xist Publishing

You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Long, Needs
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.164, Xist Publishing

The wilderness is near as well as dear to every man. Even the oldest villages are indebted to the border of wild wood which surrounds them, more than to the gardens of men. There is something indescribably inspiriting and beautiful in the aspect of the forest skirting and occasionally jutting into the midst of new towns, which, like the sand-heaps of fresh fox-burrows, have sprung up in their midst. The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams.

Henry David Thoreau
Beautiful, Nature, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.120, Xist Publishing

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